Is bone marrow transplant something you should be asking your healthcare team about now? Dr. Gabriela Hobbs discusses outdated fears around transplant for myelofibrosis, how outcomes have improved significantly, and why earlier referral can make a meaningful difference.
Dr. Gabriela Hobbs is a hematology-oncology physician specializing in the care of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), chronic myeloid leukemia, and leukemia. Dr. Hobbs serves as clinical director of the adult leukemia service at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Hobbs.
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Transcript
Dr. Gabriela Hobbs:
For some patients, medications that are being developed may not be soon enough and they may need other therapies before these medications become available. So, from a patient perspective, what I think is really important to advocate for is a referral to bone marrow transplant. So, bone marrow transplant sounds scary or stem cell transplant sounds scary, but the truth is that we and others have demonstrated that outcomes for patients with myelofibrosis undergoing stem cell transplantation have really improved significantly over time.
And not only that, but we know that patients that are referred for transplant earlier do better than those that wait too long.
And so, transplant is curative for our patients, which really we do not have medications that can do that. And with the advent of reduced intensity conditioning and better ways of preventing graft-versus-host disease, especially with the addition of ruxolitinib during transplantation, the outcomes of this procedure have improved significantly.
So, as a patient, I would ask my doctor to send me to get a referral for transplant because many doctors themselves, even in larger centers, still think that MF patients shouldn’t get a transplant because their outcomes are poor. But that’s no longer the case. So, that would be what I would ask patients.